Islamic Thought in China: Sino-Muslim Intellectual Evolution from the 17th to the 21st Century

Jonathan Lipman

Abstract

The eight essays in this volume, written by scholars from six countries, narrate the continuing translations and adaptations of Islam and Muslims within Chinese culture through the writings of Sino-Muslim intellectuals. Progressing chronologically and interlocking thematically, they help the reader develop a coherent understanding of the intellectual issues at stake. How can people belong simultaneously to two cultures without alienating themselves from either? Muslims have lived in the Chinese culture area for over a millennium, and intellectuals among them have wrestled with this problem in ... More

The eight essays in this volume, written by scholars from six countries, narrate the continuing translations and adaptations of Islam and Muslims within Chinese culture through the writings of Sino-Muslim intellectuals. Progressing chronologically and interlocking thematically, they help the reader develop a coherent understanding of the intellectual issues at stake. How can people belong simultaneously to two cultures without alienating themselves from either? Muslims have lived in the Chinese culture area for over a millennium, and intellectuals among them have wrestled with this problem in print since the 17th century. The Chinese written language never adopted vocabulary from “Islamic languages” to enable precise understanding of Islam’s religious and philosophical foundations, so Islam had to be translated into Chinese, a language dominated by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, which lacks words and arguments to justify monotheism. Even in the 21st century, culturally Chinese Muslims must still defend their devotion to a single God, avoidance of pork, regular worship at the mosque and other markers of their communities’ distinctiveness. These essays trace the intellectual evolution of Islam in Chinese, answering questions about the translation of exogenous traditions and opening new possibilities for comparison with other imported ideas, such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Marxism, and modernism. Sino-Muslim intellectuals thought about Islam in Chinese, so close readings of their writings provide direct evidence of the contradictions and triumphs of their cultural simultaneity.